Swann Insurance Kawasaki press release:

Swann Insurance Kawasaki’s Matt Walters delivered a top 10 result in race one at Winton Motor Raceway’s sixth round of the 2018 Australian Superbike Championship, continuing to impress in his search for privateer honours.

Walters posted a 1m22.036s lap-time in qualifying for 13th on the grid aboard his Ninja ZX-10R, then accelerated forward in the restarted opening race of the weekend to finish a solid eighth.

Despite the race being red-flagged following 12 laps, Walters managed to lower his personal best lap-time of the weekend to 1m21.963s on lap six. Disappointment came in race two however when he was forced out of contention while challenging for the top 10 once again.

“The first race was actually pretty good for us,” Walters commented. “We made some changes and actually went quicker on the race tyre than in qualifying, which is not unusual for me, but a really good feeling to make that progression with the bike. I was happy to take eighth and take some points back in the privateer championship.

“It all fell apart in the second race though. I don’t think the crash was any fault of our own, we’re not sure what the issue is, but we will investigate and try to put our finger on what happened. It was disappointing because I was putting up a real challenge and trying to move up another place in the points… we did move up one anyway.

“We’ll repair the bike and go to Phillip Island now. The plan is to try and build a really good motorbike to finish the season strongly. The goal for us is to wrap up the privateer championship, which would be a great result for Swann Insurance Kawasaki.

“We have the bike at a place now where we can take it to any race track and it works well pretty much straight away. We’ve constantly been inside the top 10 and Phillip Island is a track that always suits the ZX-10R, so it should be a strong finish for us.”

Ultimately credited 16th overall for the penultimate round with his 8-DNF scorecard, Walters has climbed to eighth in the ASBK title-chase, only six points outside of his goal of clinching the top privateer crown for 2018.

The 2018 Australian Superbike Championship will now take one month off prior to the seventh and final round, set to take place at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit in Victoria between 12-14 October.

Like Matt Walters Racing on Facebook and visit www.asbk.com.au for further information on the series.